


eyes, ring, posture, flight

by violents



Series: Carry On Countdown 2019 [4]
Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Agatha Wellbelove's Life in California, Carry On Countdown (Simon Snow), Childhood Memories, Gay Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Light Angst, M/M, Parenthood, Post-Book 1: Carry On, Post-Watford (Simon Snow), Pre-Canon, Song - Freeform, Songfic, Teenagers, Watford (Simon Snow), Watford First Year, Watford Fourth Year, based on May I Have This Dance by meadowlark, fuck the mage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-06
Updated: 2019-12-06
Packaged: 2021-02-25 06:07:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21691426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/violents/pseuds/violents
Summary: Simon has his mother's eyes. Penelope has her grandmother's ring. Baz mimics his father's posture. Agatha did her own thing.(a fic based on May I Have This Dance by Meadowlark)
Relationships: Lucy Salisbury & Simon Snow, Malcolm Grimm & Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch, Mitali Bunce & Penelope Bunce, The Mage/Lucy Salisbury
Series: Carry On Countdown 2019 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1554958
Comments: 4
Kudos: 20
Collections: Agatha Wellbelove fics, Carry On Countdown 2019





	eyes, ring, posture, flight

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this fic in a frenzy after the idea of it made me very emotional. It's based on this part from May I Have This Dance:
> 
> _You've got your, your mother's eyes  
>  You've got your, your grandmother's ring  
> You've got your, your daddy's discernment  
> Girl, you did your thing_
> 
> and each line, to me, represents one of the main four in Carry On. this made me very sad at work today.  
> enjoy

Lucy Salisbury holds her baby son in her arms, and she feels so weak, but she feels so happy.

Simon is less than a month old. He doesn’t have much hair, but what’s there is a copper-brown, like Davy’s. His cheeks are rosy-red, and full of so much life. He’s looking up at her with eyes that seem too big for his face.

His eyes are so,  _ so  _ blue already. Lucy had read enough parenting books during her pregnancy to know that most caucasian babies are born with blue eyes that get darker over their first six months of life. However, her son has eyes the same colour as hers right now, and she wants that to stick so hard in her memory that it can never be wiped away by  _ anything.  _

She wants to remember that colour when she’s six feet under, no matter how far away in the future that may be. She wants to remember it beyond the Veil. She wants it to keep her warm there.

“He has my eyes,” she whispers hoarsely, sitting propped up on a big pillow in bed and holding the baby against her chest. “Doesn’t he, Davy?”

“Maybe he does,” he says, and Lucy has been with him long enough to know dismissal when she hears it. He’s leafing through a book of spells.

Lucy bends her head and kisses her son on the forehead— little Simon Snow, a whimsical name for her disarmingly perfect baby boy— before letting her head fall back against the pillows. Her eyes flutter closed.

She’s so tired. Maybe Simon and his rosy cheeks and bright eyes will have to be alive enough for the both of them, for the time being.

\--

Penelope Bunce is eleven years old. She likes to read, she likes her glasses, she likes magic more than anything else. She likes her siblings, sometimes, and she likes Watford.

A few months before Penelope is supposed to start attending Watford, her maternal grandmother passes away. She was in her nineties, and lived a long and successful life, and passed peacefully in her sleep. Penelope barely knew her enough to be terribly sad about it, but when you’re likely the smartest person in the room at all times (or so Penelope likes to flatter herself), you can pick up on how sad you should act like you are.

She doesn’t get much attention from her parents for a while. They have to sort out the will. The Bunces inherit quite a lot— money, some jewellery, land. 

Penelope spends that time packing and repacking her trunk that she’s taking to Watford with her in the autumn. She  _ also  _ spends it getting more and more worked up about her present lack of a magical artifact.

The two things you need to get into Watford School of Magicks are magic, and some way to channel it. She knows she has plenty of the first: she came into her magic when she was eight and tried to levitate a pencil after reading Matilda. It’s the second she’s missing.

The day she’s supposed to leave, she is absolutely frantic _ ,  _ nagging her mother who had promised she would find an heirloom wand or something for her  _ weeks  _ ago. She manages to slip away from her at about lunchtime, and returns half an hour later from the loft with a small box.

“Penny! Come into the lounge.”

Penny does as she’s told, digging her nails into her palm to try and get herself to calm down about her whole magic-item situation. Her mother gestures to the sofa, and she sits down.

“Did you get me a wand?”

“Well,  _ no,  _ but—” Mitali holds up a finger to stop Penny’s outburst “—I got you something cooler.”

She opens the box, and there’s a ring inside. It’s got a purple gem and a silver base, and it looks like the oldest thing Penny has ever seen in her life. It’s been well-worn, but it still shines brightly and catches the light, throwing a spot of purple light onto the wall.

“ _ Whoa.” _

“It was your grandmother’s. She wanted one of you to have it. You’re just starting Watford at the right time.”

“Thank you.”

She takes it from her mother and slips it on her finger. It fits well. The silver is warm to the touch, which is  _ not  _ how metal should feel. She shivers when it settles at the base of her finger— she can feel warmth run down her spine.

“Cooler than a wand, right?” Mitali says, and she’s smiling warmly.

“ _ Way  _ cooler.”

“Sorry for stressing you out.”

“This makes up for it. Please will you take me to school now?”

\--

Baz sees his father step in front of the full-length mirror in the master bedroom of Pitch Manor. He straightens his jacket lapels and tightens his tie, and then leaves the room, nodding at Baz as he passes him in the doorway.

Tyrannus Basilton Grimm-Pitch is fourteen. He has fangs. And fire in his veins. And just a  _ lot  _ of feelings right now.

When his father is gone down the hallway, Baz steps into the master bedroom and closes the door behind him, immediately walking over to the mirror. He pulls his lips up to look at his teeth, which are presently normal-looking. As soon as he takes a bite of the biscuit he brought with him, his fangs pop. He confirmed his first hypothesis, that any food makes them pop, a long time ago.

Baz’s fangs are whiter than the rest of his teeth because they’re newer. They’re long enough to stick out over his bottom lip, and razor-sharp, which Baz would think was cool if it wasn’t absolutely terrifying.

His hair is short right now. He cut it himself, with kitchen scissors, on the afternoon he realised he was probably gay, and then Fiona dragged him by the ear to the barbers’ the next time she saw him.

He takes a step back from the mirror and looks at himself. He’s taller than most of his classmates at 5’7”, and his legs have recently gotten very long. It’s been a problem. He doesn’t know what to do with them.

Baz knows that he looks like his mother— he’s been told so plenty of times by Fiona and his father. However, he has his father’s widow’s peak, which he thinks was a cruel trick played by God. He looks almost  _ too  _ much like a vampire.

He looks into his eyes in the mirror. He tries to mimic the way Malcolm always looks nowadays. You can’t see what’s going on behind his eyes unless he chooses to show it, which isn’t very often.

Baz tilts his head down, trying to throw his grey eyes into dramatic shadow. It doesn’t work. 

It would be very helpful to keep all of his thoughts unattainable. He has plenty of feelings he would  _ like  _ to keep a secret, thank you  _ very  _ much. 

He hears Daphne call him from the dining room. Baz blinks hard a couple of times, fangs thankfully having returned to his gums after he finished his biscuit. He tries to harden his gaze into something serious in the mirror.

He straightens his jacket lapels and tightens his tie, and goes downstairs.

\--

The plane to California is too warm. Agatha hates the way she can feel sweat dripping down the back of her neck. It’s a combination of the heat and how heartbreakingly nervous she is.

Agatha Wellbelove is eighteen. Going on nineteen. She’s moving her life across the Atlantic, and she is alone.

Her wand is in England. 

She honestly does plan to call her father when she lands— she supposes it would be cruel if she didn’t. Cold, maybe. And Agatha is a lot of things, but she isn’t cold.

She’s been pushing back her cuticles methodically for ten minutes. She got an acrylic manicure two weeks ago, and now there’s a gap between her skin and where the acrylics start. She’s managed to keep the French tips perfect, though.

She also cut her hair. It’s barely grazing her collarbones. She thinks it’s very summery, very California. If she’s going to turn her life around and do her own thing as a Normal, she has to look the part.

The only niggling worry she has had in her mind since stepping onto this plane has been that some kind of huge fate will drag her back to England some day, too soon. It would be just her luck; as soon as she’s finally gotten away from everyone who has ever talked to her about  _ destiny,  _ she’ll be pulled back into it. Or into something else. She can’t escape.

Maybe this is the only autonomy she’ll ever really have. Cutting off one fate to start another. Honestly, at this point, she’ll take what she can get.

Agatha orders another glass of wine from the air hostess. This will be a long flight. And she’s sure she’s got a big storm coming on the other side.

**Author's Note:**

> god lucy salisbury makes me so sad! i initially had another fic half-written for this prompt, but it never got finished so maybe i'll squeeze it into a different prompt. Hope you enjoyed this— it's heavier in tone than most things i write, so I'd love feedback.
> 
> my tumblr is [galaxy-houseplants](https://galaxy-houseplants.tumblr.com). Kudos and comments fuel me.


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